The vases pay tribute to two young brothers - Francis and Frederick Gallagher - who left their tiny village, aged 23 and 27, to fight in World War I.

Their nephew Hugh Gallagher still lives in Eureka but never met his uncles, known as Frank and Fred.

"My sister and mother used to do the flowers in the church and I'd be given a pot of Brasso and some rags and they'd say 'they're a memorial for your uncles'," he said.

"So, it was a job dutifully done. And I'd ask 'now, those uncles - where are they?'"

Hugh relied on his father to give him an insight into Frank and Fred's personalities.

"Frank had a very quick temper," he said.

"Fred was placid but if there was an argument they were like left to right hand - don't get in front of either of them."

The brothers were killed a day apart in the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele.

Frank was killed on October 4, and Fred on October 5.

"They were all to charge but they never stood a chance, they were machine-gunned down like they were wiping out a colony of flies," Hugh said.

"One of the boys was wounded and we helped carry him out and he said, 'don't worry I'll be out in a fortnight, it's only a flesh wound'; two days later he was dead. Frank was charged the next day and again mortally wounded there."

The Gallagher brothers were single, had no children, and were two of 31 men from Eureka killed in the Great War.

"From hearing the talk when I was a youth, it was a very sad occasion," Hugh said.

"My mother told me that it got to the stage where the clergy refused to go around to deliver telegrams, so things couldn't have been too good."

Hugh said the church is a fitting home for the memorials as it was the social hub of the hinterland in the early 20th century.

He lives in hope that new generations will join the dwindling congregation and keep the soldiers' legacy alive.

"The old timers did something, surely the younger generation can try to keep up and acknowledge the effort that they put in," he said.